Sisterhood Everlasting - Ann Brashares [61]
Alice didn’t want to meet her eyes or hazard a bit of quiet creeping between them. She didn’t want a space to open where they might have to talk about Tibby and what had happened and how it had happened and how much they missed her. In fact, Alice clearly dreaded it.
Lena looked at Alice finding the yellowed instructions for the grinder on the high shelf, and in Alice she saw herself. Lena always thought she masked it so cleverly, but seeing it across the room, it struck her as tragically transparent.
Lena didn’t want to make Alice talk about anything she didn’t want to talk about—Lena of all people wouldn’t do that to her. Lena didn’t want to introduce anything hard or sad. She just wanted Alice to sit down. She just wanted Alice to know that she cared about her. Was this how it was for the people who cared about Lena? Like her mom? Like Carmen, Effie, and Bee? Like Tibby?
“How’s Nicky liking the new school?” Lena asked casually. She knew he’d switched to Maret for his junior year, leaving the public high school where they’d all gone.
For the first time Alice looked up at her. “Not too bad. Pretty good,” she said.
“It’s supposed to be a great school,” Lena said. “And hard. Harder than Bethesda, I’m sure.”
“Yes. It is.” There was a glimmer of pride in Alice’s face as she stood and drifted toward the table where Lena sat. “He’s working a lot harder than he’s worked before and getting Bs. He got an A in physics. He was proud of that.”
Lena shook her head ruefully. “I remember physics. I didn’t get an A.”
Alice rested her hip against the table tentatively. “It’s a different ball game at this school. Nicky pulled two all-nighters before his American history exam.”
“Wow,” Lena said.
Alice laughed and shook her head. “Not like you girls, sunbathing on our roof all afternoon before your history exams …” Alice stopped herself. Her face got complicated and her eyes began to fill. She looked down at her hand and began to twist her ring around.
Lena heard the gnashing gears of the dread machine starting up again and she wished she could silence them. But this time, for once, it wasn’t her gears making all the noise. The volume of Alice’s dread drowned Lena’s out. It made Lena more empathetic, a little bolder.
We’ll just have to feel our way through this, she thought.
Perry didn’t have the money to lend her. Bridget knew because she called and asked him.
“I wish I could,” he told her. “We’ve got credit card debt and we can barely scrape the rent together this month. Ask me again in July when I’m done with school and have a job, and I’ll give you whatever I have.”
She called her father twice and got impatient. He never answered his phone, and she had no good way for him to call her back whenever he got around to it, so she didn’t bother leaving messages.
She sucked it up, took a bus to San Francisco, and marched into Eric’s office. She’d worn clean clothes for the occasion. She’d failed at brushing her hair, which was heading precariously toward dreadlocks, but at least she had tied it back neatly. When she’d hugged Sheila and made her goodbyes after nearly three weeks at the Sea Star Inn, Sheila had held her at arm’s length and given her an approving once-over. “My, you clean up nice.”
Eric was surprised to see her, so surprised that his face registered joy and relief before anything else. He immediately wrapped her in his arms. “I’m so glad to see you,” he said. “I’m so glad you’re all right.”
When they sat down together, there were tears in their eyes, but no recriminations. “I’ve been a wreck about you.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. She was moved by his love for her, even after what she’d done. She was aching over the things she wasn’t telling him. “I’m sorry I just left like that. I’m sorry I haven’t called. I’m sorry for why I’m here.”
He took her hand and studied her fingers one at a time.